Having been raised in a home where parenting sometimes felt like it was more survived than enjoyed, I was excited when I began my first college child development class. The concepts were new and exciting and filled me with hope. I left that experience armed with an arsenal of tactics that convinced me that “perfecting” parenting was not only possible but that I was well on my way to being prepared.
As I observed children throwing fits in the grocery store, or the failure of my parents to successfully deal with my teenage siblings, I internally scoffed with righteous indignation while doing the smile and nod. I had this all figured out!
I’m sure you see where this is going! The bigger they are, the harder they fall!
What cured me? I had a baby. Not even multiple babies, just one. That was it. From the birth experience to the first 4 months (that nearly did me in) and on to the first year that I thought may have ruined my life, I realized I had no idea what I was doing.
When I was pregnant with #1, I started receiving advice whether I asked for it or not. This came from new moms, seasoned professionals and grandmothers whose memories of the hard stuff had faded and the joys were magnified. It wasn’t long before I noted a problem. Most of the advice I received contradicted some other piece of advice. Some of it lined up with the books I was reading, much of it didn’t. Should this baby sleep on her back, side or belly? Should I even worry about breastfeeding if it wasn’t working well? Did it even matter? One thing was sure – I would figure out the right way because my babies would be the most loved and best-raised children out there. This was my passion. This is what mattered most.
As our family grew, so did the conflicting counsel and the confusion I felt. Who knew that the same couple could produce 5 little people that were wildly different. I read books, took classes, experimented with different systems, grew in wisdom and in insecurity. I would have moments of confidence and then learn something about how the strategy I had embraced was actually wrong. I changed my strategy to line up with the “right way” only to have yet another new piece of wisdom poke holes in the last. I have paid allowance for chores and stopped paying allowance so that the children felt a responsibility for our family function, I have attempted to wrestle with a strong-willed child, and learned to control the “mom look” so as not to hurt the feelings of a soft-hearted child. I have tried co-sleeping and the “cry it out” method, I have stuck to my guns, Love and Logic style, and left a child out of a fun family waterpark adventure because his grades didn’t make the cut and cried my eyes out because I felt so bad after reading that mercy should prevail. The reward systems, zone wheels and sticker charts we have gone through have supported stationary companies across the country. And throughout, I have prayed relentlessly for my children to be resilient.
There have been times that I was so frustrated with all of the paradoxes around me that I stopped reading, learning and experimenting. I figured that my gut instincts had just as much a chance of being right as anyone else’s. It never works. I have no doubt that my natural man is not wired to be an instinctive good parent! I can never stop learning or trying to find ways to make our home environment a positive place to be.
One theory may work with one child and a part of a different theory may work for another. These thoughts were addressed by Dr. Joan Grusec in an article published in Psychology Today. In her article ‘Why is Child-Rearing Advice So Contradictory?’, she offers that the reason this happens the differences in “domains” of socialization. While this is interesting and useful, it adds another level of confusion to the process.
No one has achieved a one size fits all solution and we can only do our best to parent in a way that leads our children back to Heavenly Father. Parenting takes grit. I have learned that “just love them” is the most frustrating and non-specific parenting advice anyone can give, but also the only all-inclusive, meaningful advice.
My days of being a perfect parent ended a quarter of a century ago. Since then, I have birthed babies with epidurals, naturally and hypnobirthing style and survived that first year over and over again. Most credibly, I have raised (and/or continue to raise) five children. My experience, whether through academic education or the school of hard knocks, has been a long time in the making.
These days when I see a child throwing a tantrum in the store, I feel true compassion and hope that young mom can keep her wits and just love her little one. I hope that she can be compassionate to herself when she is overwhelmed with inadequacy. When my friends share their worries and struggles they have with their teenagers, I empathize with them and praise their courage to just keep going. When I am asked for advice, I tell stories of what did and didn’t work for me, share things I have learned and emphasize that there is no magic fix. Most importantly, I don’t pretend to have all of the answers as this is the thing that disheartens me the most when I am on the receiving end.
That there is no other work with as high of stakes. We have all heard that nothing worth having comes easy. Children are definitely worth having and parenting is just plain hard.
Why Is Child-Rearing Advice So Contradictory? (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/principles-effective-parenting/201909/why-is-child-rearing-advice-so-contradictory
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